Refineries rely on catalytic cracking processes, such as fluid catalytic cracking (FCC), to convert relative heavy fractions of crude oil into more valuable fuels including gasoline and diesel. Light cycle oil (LCO) output from the FCC process boils in a range suitable for inclusion in the diesel blending pool. However, the LCO contains substantial aromatic content that may be at least 80% resulting in the LCO providing too low of a cetane number for diesel use.
Since the cetane number correlates inversely with the aromatic content, LCO upgrading approaches thus often attempt to reduce the aromatic content. Prior exemplary techniques to convert the LCO utilize hydrodearomatization (HAD) and hydrocracking. Both of these processes provide limited economic benefits due to capital expenses, amount of hydrogen consumed and required operating pressures.
Therefore, a need exists for cost efficient processes that enable increasing cetane number of hydrocarbon streams through reduction of aromatic content therein.